Rapid Transit

[thistleclub]

Originally Posted by Beedok

The A-line is going to be… not super useful

Even if two trains are added to West Harbour by 2024, there will be no train service to the station outside of rush hours, and none on weekends. The A-Line route already serves this corridor and will presumably continue to do so.

If you live south of York/Wilson you’re technically closer to the Hunter GO. If you live north of York/Wilson, you can walk to a stop at Cannon and wait for LRT. Or just walk all the way to the station.

The A-Line business case has yet to be made and, per the all-important asterisks, "the A-line construction portion still remains contingent on the province having enough funding from the $1 billion budget that was announced last spring by the provincial government."

[SteelTown]

Went from having just buses to eventually having LRT and streetcar, nice.

This streetcar will be really important as it'll link the downtown to the waterfront and I think over the next 20 years or so a lot of changes in Hamilton will occur along the downtown to the waterfront, linking the two closer together.

[king10]

Lol i like how the one comment on that article is ripping on the fact that there is 1KM between stops.

i guess he/she missed the fact that its rapid transit and not a bus making stops at every corner

[MalcolmTucker]

I find it really odd that at this stage of the game they still haven't nailed down where they are going to put the maintenance facility.

[interr0bangr]

I like that the stop is at Victoria instead of Wellington, but I'm surprised there's nothing between it and Catherine. There should be a stop at Ferguson or Walnut.

[davidcappi]

Everyone gets hung up on all day train service but the reality is that it's not as fast as the 16 Union Express bus during non rush hour times. I take the train to Toronto every day, and for the mornings or rush hour it's fine, but when it's not rush hour it's waaaaaaaaay faster for me to take the Union Express bus from Hunter Street. Most people taking transit towards the GTA are going straight to Union, and the additional train stops make no sense since very few people need to get to those places during off hours.

[lucasmascotto]

Originally Posted by davidcappi

Everyone gets hung up on all day train service but the reality is that it's not as fast as the 16 Union Express bus during non rush hour times. I take the train to Toronto every day, and for the mornings or rush hour it's fine, but when it's not rush hour it's waaaaaaaaay faster for me to take the Union Express bus from Hunter Street.

FINALLY SOMEONE SAID THIS. I've argued that point for years. The express bus is so much better outside of the morning and evening rush.

[Innsertnamehere]

Current plans for all day service to Hamilton include making it an express service - which means it'll be faster.

[davidcappi]

Current plans for all day service to Hamilton include making it an express service - which means it'll be faster.

No, what they mean is continuing the current "express" service which is all stops to Oakville/Clarkson and express from there to Union. There are still stops at Aldershot, Burlington, Appleby, Bronte, and Oakville or Clarkson. I usually take the 7:15am train from Hunter Street which arrives at Union by 8:35am, taking just over an hour and fifteen minutes. The express bus, with no traffic can take as little as 40 minutes from Station to Station.

Edit: Let me remind you guys that this route is the ONLY route the train takes out of Hamilton. It hits those stops, and continues onto Union. The only variable is whether or not the last stop is Oakville, or Clarkson before becoming express.

[drpgq]

I don't even understand why they are doing the A line street car. Wasn't the number in the morning for the West Harbour GO that 25 are getting on each of the two trains? Where's the demand for this route? Barring massive skyscraper building in the West Harbour region, there's not enough density.

I'm just glad the LRT isn't going snake down to the Harbour and come back.

[interr0bangr]

Originally Posted by drpgq

I don't even understand why they are doing the A line street car. Wasn't the number in the morning for the West Harbour GO that 25 are getting on each of the two trains? Where's the demand for this route? Barring massive skyscraper building in the West Harbour region, there's not enough density.

I'm just glad the LRT isn't going snake down to the Harbour and come back.

There's a ton of people that get off at West Harbour in the evenings, myself included. I don't take it in the morning because the trains leave insanely early, opting for the 715 train at Hunter instead.

Plus you want to factor in providing good transit access to the waterfront, including facilitating the thousands of people that will be living in the condos there in the next few years.

I guess I just don't like that it's a streetcar. Like, between the buses and the LRT do we really need to add another completely separate method to the mix? I know there's cost implications, but I wish it was an LRT line so it could be easily (ha!) extended up the mountain in the future.

[davidcappi]

There's a ton of people that get off at West Harbour in the evenings, myself included. I don't take it in the morning because the trains leave insanely early, opting for the 715 train at Hunter instead.

Yeah, sometimes I'll take the 5:37 train to West Harbour in the evenings, the next one from Union at 6:37 goes to Hunter Street if I'm not mistaken. I only leave from West Harbour if I have a call time that is super early, or if I have to be on a location for 9 instead of at the office.

Currently I live around Barton and Wentworth so not having a direct connection to the number 2 Barton bus line is a bit of a pain, so I have to walk from WH to John & Barton. However, I am moving up to Durand in a month so I'll be taking advantage of the 20 A Line when I decide to train home to WH.

But usually I bus home since I don't have to deal with the platform madness at Union.

[MalcolmTucker]

^ It is pretty easy to protect the street car lane later - just drilling and fastening some of those plastic poles on the flexible bases.

[thistleclub]

FWIW, it’s a 10-minute walk from West Harbour GO to the West Harbour — seven blocks, give or take (basically the distance from Union Station to the Rogers Centre or Eaton Centre). You can close that distance in a third of the time on bike.

2011 Census: 15,000 people live in Ward 2 between King Street and the Harbour. 10,000 live between King and the rail lines. Half of those live between Cannon and the West Harbour GO, and probably half of those live closer to the West Harbour GO than the proposed LRT stop at Cannon.

It’s about the same distance (~450m walking) between the Hamilton GO Centre and MacNab Transit Terminal as it is from Mulberry to the West Harbour GO (or West Harbour GO to Bayfront Park, for that matter). In the former case, Metrolinx is content with a Higher Order Pedestrian Corridor. In the latter, it expects a higher order transit connection.

I'll be interested to see the ridership predictions.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by davidcappi

No, what they mean is continuing the current "express" service which is all stops to Oakville/Clarkson and express from there to Union. There are still stops at Aldershot, Burlington, Appleby, Bronte, and Oakville or Clarkson. I usually take the 7:15am train from Hunter Street which arrives at Union by 8:35am, taking just over an hour and fifteen minutes. The express bus, with no traffic can take as little as 40 minutes from Station to Station.

Edit: Let me remind you guys that this route is the ONLY route the train takes out of Hamilton. It hits those stops, and continues onto Union. The only variable is whether or not the last stop is Oakville, or Clarkson before becoming express.

What's proposed does indicate express between Oakville and Union. But that's still just the proposal, and they have yet to firm up the service planning.

Since the plan also includes 4 electric trains per hour off-peak from Aldershot, it seems to me that having the hourly Hamilton trains make all stops to Oakville as well would be redundant.

They could always take away one of those Aldershot-terminating electrics and use the diesel from/to Hamilton to make the stops. Or schedule the Hamilton train to effectively have 5 trains per hour between Aldershot and Oakville. Or, they could let the diesel make one stop at either Aldershot or Burlington Station, with express between there and Oakville (which would also be more efficient operationally for the diesel engines -- they can build up to a higher speed with the longer distance between stops). Perhaps something like that could be applied during peaks as well, but passenger demand will be more of a factor in determining how many intermediate stops the Hamilton trains would have to make.

I've taken the Friday evening Niagara train back to Burlington in the summer on occasion. It only stops at Exhibition, Port Credit and Oakville before Burlington, so the trip is quite fast ~ 40 minutes vs. the 50-52 that regular express trains do for that trip. Something similar for the Hamilton services -- minus the stops at the Ex and Port Credit -- would be much more competitive with the buses (presuming GO keeps running them)

[fuller]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Just call the A line a streetcar then. Mixed traffic means it has essentially no LRT features.

The lack of a separated right-of-way slows progress in traffic, so the R in this case would be for Rail, not Rapid, and with that being the case the stops may be more closely spaced.

So this is a streetcar line, one that uses LRT-style vehicles.

That being the case, there are a number of features that would still represent a generational jump in terms of functionality and cost of operation:

- Greater capacity than a bus, so lower labour costs per passenger carried

- Low floor vehicles with level boarding

- Rear door boarding, with Proof of Payment and electronic payment (Presto).

- Also, more boarding doors - 4 sets, I think, instead of 2, or really 1, on buses.

- Pantograph-style power pickup eliminates lost power due to disconnection from overhead cable which plagued older streetcars and trolleys.

Basically it is a streetcar line, but one with greater passenger carrying capacity, and some of the features that make modern Light Rail Transit attractive and accessible to all, while being more cost-effective to operate.

[ScreamingViking]

Originally Posted by MalcolmTucker

I find it really odd that at this stage of the game they still haven't nailed down where they are going to put the maintenance facility.

It's an issue of finding enough space close enough to the route. The original thinking was to put it in an existing city works building >1km north of the central part of the LRT line.

Space is at a premium on the west end of the line too though. If they kill the idea of a new bridge over the 403, and run the LRT down to Main on the east side of the 403 (down Dundurn for example, or perhaps between the CPR line and the 403) this plot might be a candidate though I'm not sure if that's already earmarked for something else like Mac Innovation Park expansion; there's also this one closer to Main but I'm not sure it's large enough. Farther west there is little space unless they expropriate something... could it be built in the hydro corridor 1km west of McMaster, and extend the line in that direction instead of building a spur? I don't know.

[SteelTown]

Originally Posted by thistleclub

Aren't we planning a major transit terminal at the Delta? Why isn't there an LRT stop?

[thistleclub]

The disparity between proposed A-Line & B-Line station spacing is striking as well (three blocks from West Harbour GO to Ferrie, for example).

[drpgq]

Regardless if there's more that get off in the evenings, I think the streetcar is overkill.

Where's the daytime traffic going to come from? Where's the density?